Considering the national attention Birmingham has recently received regarding the amount of activity occurring in its downtown, I felt it appropriate to begin a Compilation thread to detail the large and important projects that are under construction, approve/planned, or proposed.

Two recent (within the last few months) articles by the Associate Press and the New York Times have been two of the top contributers to the national attention noted in the above paragraph.

The above articles only underscore the potential that many of us locally believe the city to have. As is mentioned in the NYT article, the city largely escaped the demolish and pave movement that saw many older buildings in downtown areas torn down to make way for parking lots or horrid architecture. Because of this, much of the activity seen in downtown Birmingham has been in the form of renovations and new construction that meshes well with, or takes advantage of, the gritty nature of the cityscape.

For more consistent updates on construction progress or smaller projects that would clutter up this thread, please feel free to check out the Birmingham Development News thread in the Southeast forum.

The Westin Birmingham is located adjacent to the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel and the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex. The addition of another hotel near the BJCC was a big goal for the city, as it would bring the total number of hotel rooms nearby the BJCC over 1,000.

The Westin Birmingham is also home to the Todd English P.U.B. which has two locations nationwide, the other being in Las Vegas.

Regions Field is an 8,500 seat baseball stadium, completed this summer (2013), On the Southside of Birmingham and is home to the AA White Sox affiliate the Birmingham Barons, who moved to this new stadium from the B'ham suburb of Hoover.

$300 million, to be completed in 2016, will be the center of the Cahaba Center Business Park directly employing 5,500. Daniel Corp. has plans to construct a 200,000 sqft medical office building and 250 room hotel.

$60-90 million, Von Maur and Old Navy opening in Fall 2013, new (larger) Forever 21 location opened in Aug 2013, Wynfrey Hotel renovation and conversion to Hyatt Regency ($20 million). Announced 9/3/2013, Michael Kors and Cathy Jean will open stores in the mall. Announced 9/4/2013, Belk will invest in a renovation to make it's Galleria location a flagship store, giving Birmingham its second such location and Alabama its third. The Belk store will also soon hire 55 new employees.

The Parisian[/COLOR] - $7.5 million, plans call for 32 apartments, ground floor retail/dining, rooftop deck, and 163 space parking deck. Planned groundbreaking in November with the project finishing in late spring 2014. Went ahead and moved this one to under construction since it's only about a month away.[/COLOR]

$50 Million. 2,800 space parking deck. 70,000 square foot clinic. At the corner of 25th St South and University Blvd. Might as well be at the corner of Red Mountain Expressway and University Blvd South.

Grocery store/restaurant on the first floor with 145 apartment suites on floors 2-7. Previous proposals had a substantial amount of office space instead of residential space. Construction is expected to start early 2014 and be completed in 2016.

The Stockyard @ Railroad Park - Dwntwn-PARKSIDE
Source: AL.com
Crowdsourced development located adjacent to Regions Field. So far, only the name has been selected. Next, the public will vote on a design for the building on BirminghamsBuilding.com.

Would replace the current elevated viaduct through downtown with a new elevated viaduct. The current proposal by ALDOT has drawn much criticism from the public, but the plan shows no signs of being changed.

$30 million project to combine passenger service for Amtrak, Greyhound, local buses, and potentially Megabus as well as provide a "farmers' market" type market. Construction should begin in Oct 2013.

Birmingham VA - DwnTwn

The VA has plans for a 60,000 sqft facility including a 2,000 car parking deck in the CBD.

LIV Birmingham_Additional Residential Development - DwnTwn-PARKSIDE

LINK to LIV's current, more solid project
A second project proposed by LIV Development to be constructed in the Parkside area on the Southside. Current plans call for a $30 million development with around 220 units (estimated based on my own evaluations).

AWESOME! Thank you for making a B-ham thread. I sometimes check the thread in the Southeast subsection but it'll be much easier to keep up on activity here. Birmingham has a rather large and impressive core for a city its size (population-wise). I would love to see it become more active and developed, thrive as Alabama's major city and evolve to become another central node of the Piedmont megalopolis.

And it wouldn't hurt to snatch the "state's tallest tower" title back from Mobile...baby steps

__________________"Also, to be frank, I like dense cities best and care about them most." from The Death And Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs.

AWESOME! Thank you for making a B-ham thread. I sometimes check the thread in the Southeast subsection but it'll be much easier to keep up on activity here. Birmingham has a rather large and impressive core for a city its size (population-wise). I would love to see it become more active and developed, thrive as Alabama's major city and evolve to become another central node of the Piedmont megalopolis.

And it wouldn't hurt to snatch the "state's tallest tower" title back from Mobile...baby steps

You're welcome StatenIslander! Yea, compared to many other cities in the country, Birmingham's core is quite large and much of it is still occupied by the city's early 20th Century buildings. I'm glad we're seeing older buildings renovated instead of being neglected for the sake of building flashy buildings. I think it'll be nice to see the skyline in the future, a mixture of the older stone/masonry buildings with the newer glass-clad ones.

I too would like to see the state's tallest building back in Birmingham, but I imagine it might look a bit awkward if it were to be constructed in downtown because of where it would have to be constructed due to flight paths :/ Stupid flight paths...

yep, a lot of people probably don't realize that the CBD is directly in the flight path of BHM International. the tallest 4 towers are all capped out in the 400-450' range.

would love to see a tall or even supertall tower built, but it would have to be south of the tracks.

that's really the only "problem" with all this development... it's not manifesting itself in new towers. as quattordici said, there's great building stock to take advantage of. but to the average passerby on the interstate who doesn't experience the redevelopment at the street level, i can see where the current skyline looks a little tired.

I'm glad y'all appreciate it! Just for s***s and giggles, just so you know, attendance for Birmingham Barons at Regions Field is the highest in the league (total and average). Their average attendance is over 1,000 greater than the closest franchise (Pensacola).

__________________
psst... A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)The French are just a bunch of Italians that woke up in a very bad mood - Jean Cocteau.The French? Pathetic! Always obnoxious! The total opposite of the Italians! Paris? Awfully polluted! The unbearable downtown! - (basically unattractive) Carla Bruni.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – A $30 million, six-story apartment and retail project across from the Birmingham Railroad Park got the green light today to start the development with plans to be open the first quarter of 2015.
LIV Parkside will have 228 apartments along First Avenue South between 17th and 18th Streets, facing the $19 million Railroad Park and one block from the new $64 million Regions Field. The project will also include 2,900 square feet of retail space at its two northern corners and the project will be built atop a two-level parking deck.

Quote:

The Birmingham Design Review Committee gave preliminary approval to LIV Parkside’s site plan and concept but took issue with some of the design elements calling them “too suburban” or more fitting for somewhere in Florida than in downtown Birmingham.

Gah, you beat me to posting it! Haha, I'll update the main list later today. Great news for the area round Railroad Park. I'm glad this project won't be short. If I read the article correct, it's 6 floors on top of a two floor parking deck? Does that mean it's 8 floors, or is the deck considered part of the 6?